Café de Nuit

Jester of the FoS wrote: Likewise, many classes have options and status effects [...] which make them feel very different.

But they're not really.

*scratches head in puzzlement*

brilliantlight wrote: That's an interesting way of looking at it. The way I read you is that you think 3.5 is better for roleplaying while 4th edition is better for wargaming.

Exactly! ! ! I wish I have put it in so few words!

Jester of the FoS wrote:

jaer wrote:They've balanced out the power additions and, with PrCs gone, less power gaming.

It's alive and well. Visit the WotC character optimization boards to see some disgusting combinations of gear/paragon paths/ and feats.

Power gaming will die after gaming does.

Also... are you sure the psions are different? I haven't seen anything about them yet. I'm renewing my subscription to DDI next week, so I'm somewhat back on info.

Jester of the FoS wrote: Likewise, many classes have options and status effects other classes do not. Warlock powers tend to be single target ranged powers while sorcerers use bursts and blasts which make them feel very different.

But they're not really.

What?

That's nice.

Never mind. I think you've pretty much made your stance abundantly clear.

Jester of the FoS wrote: It's alive and well. Visit the WotC character optimization boards to see some disgusting combinations of gear/paragon paths/ and feats.

I would say it is even more prevelent. The NPCs are wimps, you need them to be at least a level or two higher than the party for them to be much of a challange.

Jester of the FoS wrote:But you still NEED the magic gear, which is even more essential to your character. Heck, at first level 4/5ths of the party get a magic weapon or armour and as early as level 2 someone gets a +2 item.

I have to comment on this point Jester, in that I disagree with you here. In 4E, they removed all the monster resistances; you can attack the Tarrasque now with a regular sword (although with a general resistance to all damage, you probably won't hurt it much, but you still can).

Also, from personal experience in my 4E game, the Warlock in the group was 9th level (the approximate level of the party) and due to some other consequences, said character had very little in magic items compared to the rest of the party. (He had a magic rod and maybe a few potions, and that was it; he was still wearing regular leather armor even!) Anyways, although he definately did feel less powerful than the other characters, especially in regards to AC, he still survived just fine through Pyramid of Shadows.

So I would have to say that magic items on your character, although the system assumes your PCs have them at certain levels, is no different than 3E. In fact, I remember the big thing about 3E being the assumption of magic items and John Mangrum saying way back when that was part of the difficulties of creating the 3E Ravenloft setting and abandoning the idea that magic items were as rare in the Domains anymore.

Igor the Henchman wrote:

Jester of the FoS wrote: Likewise, many classes have options and status effects [...] which make them feel very different.

But they're not really.

*scratches head in puzzlement*

Like domination effects not being in the first PHB because they're being saved for psionics. Or necromancy and illusions initially held back as well for a possible shadow power source.
It makes some classes feel special since they're doing slightly things (for now). But it tends to be once per day (every couple fights) and then only for a round or two. The rest of the time you just make a standard attack and deal damage just like everyone else.

Mortavius wrote:

Jester of the FoS wrote:But you still NEED the magic gear, which is even more essential to your character. Heck, at first level 4/5ths of the party get a magic weapon or armour and as early as level 2 someone gets a +2 item.

I have to comment on this point Jester, in that I disagree with you here. In 4E, they removed all the monster resistances; you can attack the Tarrasque now with a regular sword (although with a general resistance to all damage, you probably won't hurt it much, but you still can).

Except that fighting the tarrasque without gear means you're essentially working with a -6 to attacks and similar penalties to defences (much higher to AC). You're not going to hit. At least not on anything below an 18.
And if you do hit, you lose the very, very sizable crit bonus.

The warlock you gave is a bad example. It only needed a magic implement (which it had). Warlock defences are quite good and they attack from a distance. And it was at the heroic tier where the non-magic penalty is the least noticeable.

But unlike 3e which had variable gold there is only the single set of treasure parcels which say 4 items per level ranging from level+1 to level +4 (2-5). Your PCs will NEVER see just a +1 sword. Even in the magic heavy 3e you were lucky to get a magic weapon before third or fourth level. Meanwhile, 4e PCs will get a +2 item at level 2!!

I'm really having a problem with this in my adventures. The PCs are well into heroic and doing 3-4 encounters an adventure, so they're levelling every 2.5 adventures. Which means I need to give out 1.5 magic items each and every adventure. I'll repeat, I have to give out a magic item each and every session. And a tonne of gold.
And sometimes the adventure just doesn't lend itself to mass treasure so I need to give out a giant stack of treasure the next time.

And it's all so needless. D&D has traditionally gone on magic items going from 1-5 but 4e goes from 1-6. There's no reason they couldn't have something else before for the first half of heroic and start with magic at level 6-ish. Or reduced defences by that tiny bit.

For your own adventures, Jester, have your considered this?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rp ... -slot.html

Jester of the FoS wrote:It makes some classes feel special since they're doing slightly things (for now). But it tends to be once per day (every couple fights) and then only for a round or two. The rest of the time you just make a standard attack and deal damage just like everyone else.

While I can't disagree with you Jester, can I ask you then, what was so different in previous editions to this? Fighters are the worst example, being that they tended to "attack" each round and that was it. Spellcasters got more varied, but if you break it down, it was just one attacking spell after another, with a defensive spell thrown in and healing as needed. It's not like much has changed, to my thinking.

It sounds like your complaint has more to do with D&D overall than 4E in particular.

Jester of the FoS wrote:Except that fighting the tarrasque without gear means you're essentially working with a -6 to attacks and similar penalties to defences (much higher to AC). You're not going to hit. At least not on anything below an 18.
And if you do hit, you lose the very, very sizable crit bonus.

Again, very true, and I alluded to this before with my comment on not doing much damage. But if you compare this to previous editions, where you had NO chance of doing ANY damage to a Tarrasque without a magic weapon, it would seem that in 4E, if you can do SOME damage to tha Tarrasque, even 1 HP worth, that points to magic items not being as essential as you were implying.

Jester of the FoS wrote:The warlock you gave is a bad example. It only needed a magic implement (which it had). Warlock defences are quite good and they attack from a distance. And it was at the heroic tier where the non-magic penalty is the least noticeable.

I don't see the Warlock defenses being any better than some of the other classes (*cough* Paladin *cough*). And you'll just have to trust me, when I was hitting the Warlock character 75% or more of the time with attacks, whether they were melee or ranged (and a lot of monsters have ranged attacks now it seems), that character was feeling the sting of not having magical defenses. But my basic point is, he didn't die.

But I do completely agree that the penalty is least noticeable at the heroic tier, and I will allow that perhaps I lack total perspective in this in the regard that I have only run heroic level games so far.

I also agree with you that 4E may very well be very magic item heavy. I haven't crunched the numbers on that and compared them with any previous editions. My main point was that the designers wanted to make the magic items in 4E not as integral to the character (i.e. if you didn't have item "x" you were screwed), and I have found from experience that is true. Though having item "x" sure does help.

Mortavius wrote:I also agree with you that 4E may very well be very magic item heavy. I haven't crunched the numbers on that and compared them with any previous editions. My main point was that the designers wanted to make the magic items in 4E not as integral to the character (i.e. if you didn't have item "x" you were screwed), and I have found from experience that is true. Though having item "x" sure does help.

I find it to be more magic heavy, but that magic is the big 3. You absolutely must have those, especially at high levels.
You needed the big magic in 3e too (weapon, armour, stat boost, save boost) but there was much more room for the random fun and unique magic items.

In 4e you get a single odd item each tier. Any more and you have to make them yourself or sacrifice attacking or a defence.

Thankfully, the math in 4e is easy enough that you can just give everyone a straight boost to attack, damage, and defence every 5 levels and ignore magic. But the idea of a +2 longsword a second level just irks me so much.

As for warlocks, a scourge warlock uses Con and Int boosting 2 defences and all warlocks get the innate +1 to Ref and Will. Plus every time they move 3 squares they essentially get a +2 to all defences for a two rounds.

Mortavius wrote:While I can't disagree with you Jester, can I ask you then, what was so different in previous editions to this? Fighters are the worst example, being that they tended to "attack" each round and that was it. Spellcasters got more varied, but if you break it down, it was just one attacking spell after another, with a defensive spell thrown in and healing as needed. It's not like much has changed, to my thinking.

It sounds like your complaint has more to do with D&D overall than 4E in particular.

I have no problems with fighters having "powers". I just find them having the exact same number and recharge mechanic as each and every other class in the game, frankly, lazy. Lazy, needless, and another sacrifice to the endlessly ravenous god Baal'ance.

I am glad fighters have more options than "how much should I power attack for" but giving them spells and funky abilities that in many ways could be refluffed into wizard spells just seems wrong.

Of course, there are also some players I know who hated sorcerers, who hated spellcasters, and can't play 4e because they lock-up and take 3x as long to take their turn.

Mortavius wrote:Again, very true, and I alluded to this before with my comment on not doing much damage. But if you compare this to previous editions, where you had NO chance of doing ANY damage to a Tarrasque without a magic weapon, it would seem that in 4E, if you can do SOME damage to tha Tarrasque, even 1 HP worth, that points to magic items not being as essential as you were implying.

See, I like that. If you're unprepared for a fight you should be ineffectual. If you don't have any silver and you're facing a werewolf it should be hard and not just a case of doing 5 damage or the fight lasting an extra 2 or 3 rounds.

Fair enough. I have to say, your idea about Fighters before was compelling. About changing their powers and such to be more different from the other classes. Have you considered creating a varient Fighter build for the online Dragon magazines?

Plus, I see your point about Warlocks and where you're coming from there. Not that you would know this (and I didn't mention it) the Warlock player had forgotten about that movement defense bonus until just recently, so that also contributed to his lower AC, and attributable to his newness to D&D and 4E altogether.

So when it comes down to it, Jester, you really, really, really, really hate the recharge mechanic, is what I'm reading.

DocBeard wrote:So when it comes down to it, Jester, you really, really, really, really hate the recharge mechanic, is what I'm reading.

Pretty much. And I hate the idea of every class having 15+ levels of powers. It just eats up the pages.
1/2 the 2 & 3e PHBs were big lists of spells only useless by a single class. In 4e 3/4ths of the book is spells and there's no overlap.

It just seems easier to have powers derived from your power source and modified by your class features. And powers whose potency increases as you go up in levels.
And that way you don't need to think of 36 new and different powers for each and every build.

The problem is that if you don't have this variety of powers, there are then complaints about how few powers there are, how they're all the same, and how therefore all the characters are the same. It seems to end up being a case of "damned if you do and damned if you don't".

Mortavius wrote:It sounds like your complaint has more to do with D&D overall than 4E in particular.

For what little it's worth, I came to this realization myself a while after the 4E release. It wasn't so much the issue that 4E was an unsatisfactory iteration of the d20 formula, as much as I'd gotten tired of the d20 formula itself and my appetites were going elsewhere.

The divorce was messy and there's still a lot of stuff to sort out but I'm happier with my greener pastures. We're still arguing over the kids though.